Sirsa river breaches banks, paddy fields inundated in Ropar villages

The Sirsa river in Ropar district has breached the banks after heavy rainfall in Himachal Pradesh. Fields located on the banks of the river in Aspur, Majari and Kotbala villages have been inundated. Paddy crop on hundreds of acres has been destroyed. The farmers are alleging that the fodder they had stored for their cattle has also been destroyed. The farmers fear that in case of more rain in the region, water might enter their houses.

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The Sirsa is a tributary of the Sutlej. It originates in Solan district of Himachal and merges with the Sutlej in Ropar district. The river is prone to flashfloods in the monsoon. Villagers allege that the department of drainage had not removed silt from the river for the past three-four years, due to which the riverbed had gone up and in the monsoon the water enters their fields.

Executive Engineer, Drainage, Ropar, Tushar Goyal, however, blamed the villagers for not giving NOC for desilting the Sirsa. He said the department through the local SDM had written to panchayats of Kotbala, Aspur, Majari, Awalkot and Taraf villages to give NOC for desilting the Sirsa. However, NOC did not come from the said panchayats due to which desilting could not be carried out, he said.

Tushar further said that the Drainage Department carries out desiltation in rivers only after getting NOC from panchayats.

Former sarpanch of Aspur village Ranbir Singh Sony while talking to The Tribune said, “Crop on about 250 acres in their village has been damaged as the Sirsa breached its banks. We now fear that water might enter our houses in the coming days. We have requested the district administration and the Drainage Department to get the river desilted and build embankments along the river.”

When asked about the claims of the Drainage Department that the panchayats had not given NOC for desilting the river, Ranbir Singh Sony said that during the last desilting of the river carried about three years ago, instead of desilting it from the centre, the people involved lifted sand and gravel from the banks of river